Today I have a ton of lovely Valentines day tutorials for you! Nat and Ash are two sweet cousins who love to craft! Here they are:
First of all, let me introduce myself. My cousin Nat and I have a blog called “Crafty Cousins”. We both have private family blogs that we’ve had for years. Recently, we realized we were cluttering up our blogs with pictures of our projects instead of our cute little munchkins. We decided to join forces and start a new craft blog where we can put our projects on, and have an outlet from crazy motherhood! You can read more about us
here. Thanks Alyssa for having me over today!
Being the mom of 2 little girls, who both think princess dresses and tutus are perfectly fine to wear EVERYWHERE, everyday….Valentine’s is their kind of holiday! Pink, pretty, flowers, hearts, sparklies, what more could a little girl (or a big girl) want!? We had fun the last week crafting a few decorations, and they loved showing their daddy what they’ve been making with mommy! Now, I apologize in advance. I’ve seen Alyssa’s pictures, and mine are no where near as good, so please bear with this learning rookie!
First off, we bought a flower making wreath at Hobby Lobby. I bought one that was 16 inches, but if I were doing this project again, I’d go smaller (it’d look fuller with the same amount of hearts…).
I put extra wire in the middle, like a bike spoke, so I’d have more places to hang hearts. If I had my spray paint, I probably would have sprayed the wire wreath at this point…Silver, white, red, or pink maybe.
Then, I had my girlies come help. Don’t mind the picture, it’s actually the best of them out of 5. They just can’t hold still!
We used my mom’s Sizzix, and cut out LOTS of hearts!
Since I didn’t have any double-sided scrapbook paper, I glued a few pieces together before cutting out the hearts.
Next, we took some glitter glue and decorated the hearts
By this time, their attention was spent, so we went on to other things and decided to come back later, when the hearts were dry.
After they had dried, we came back to the hearts and poked holes with a needle
and threaded fishing line through the holes.
and then tied them onto the wire wreath,
all over, in different lengths.
Let’s be honest, the kiddos weren’t helping by this time. One was napping and the other was watching Mickey’s Clubhouse.
After it’s full of hearts, hang it up!
Just for reference sake, I used 48 hearts, half bigger, half smaller….
In front of a window…
By the way, if this looks familiar, I was inspired by Pottery Barn’s Valentine Chandelier:
So what did I do with the rest of the hearts?
While at the Hobby Lobby, I checked out their clearance Christmas things, and they had these trees. Red and white. For $4.
I bought it to decorate for Valentine’s in my girl’s room, and maybe spray paint white for Christmas! So we made a bunch of paper ornaments (read: free so doesn’t matter if they get broken by said girls)
We decorated the tree, and I imagine we’ll be making more ornaments and additions to the tree until V-day…
This heart is made out of red hot candies glued onto a cardboard heart.
That’s the
dollhouse I did for my daughter for Christmas in the background.
They like looking at it, and I imagine we’ll make it even more girly with feather boas, lights, and sparkly beads!
Finally, what Valentine’s wouldn’t be complete without a wreath? Last Valentine’s, before I knew there was such a thing as craft blogs, I made this heart wreath out of Christmas ornaments (on clearance, of course!) and a hanger shaped into a heart. I know there’s tons of tutorials out there, so if you want to make one, you’ll have to go look for one, because this is the only picture I took! One tip I will give is make sure your ornaments are shatter proof, so they don’t break when they fall off (and they will!), and make sure to use hot glue on the metal hanging part before you loop onto the hanger. That will help them not pop off!
But, here’s this year’s version of the wreath.
I bought a Dollar store wreath and chopped the edges with an X-acto knife to make it more rounded shape.
I had seen some candies displayed in a glass vase, and decided that needed to go on a wreath.
If you don’t want to make the wreath, Good & Plenty’s are the perfect Valentine colored candy to go on your mantel in a pretty jar too! My original idea was to make a design like this….
Are you pondering what I’m pondering? I think so, Brain, but if a ham can operate a radio, why can’t a pig set a VCR?
Chevron. But because of gluing issues and the type of wreath, I just went with gluing them on. I didn’t start right, so they’re not exactly straight, but if you do this, you may want to draw a line for the first one to make sure it’s straight. This wreath used up 3 boxes of Good & Plenty’s, so make sure you have enough for your wreath size!
I had some light pink spray paint, so I sprayed the foam wreath, just so that not-so-awesome green wouldn’t show through in gaps. You can wrap it with ribbon if you have it too. Then, just start gluing! Pretty straight forward, so here’s the finished product!
Hung with a loop of ribbon over our door…
There were quite a bit more pinks than whites, so I used my leftovers and hot glued them to a 1 1/2” Styrofoam ball. I was going to use it as an ornament on our tree, but it’s HEAVY!
Maybe just set in on a candlestick, or do a group of them for your mantel!
Thanks for having me Alyssa! I had lots of fun making these Valentine crafts and hope you do too!
